The never ending Toyota return to Le Mans (LMP1) Saga

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by Acid09

It's amazing how much better the new rear wing makes the car look..especially when looking at it head-on.

I always liked the TS030 but now it looks downright gorgeous.

Completely agree , except I wouldnt go for the gorgeous word , but this can graft onto anyother P1 car , which is cool . I like it .

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by TF110

Those 'skinny' rear wings need to go!

+1

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by deggis

^

Purely visually: cool but still weird (then again the old full sized wings look so weird too now).

That new section , the horizontal definatly has aero effects , its really very interesting ..... lovely to see someone new break new ground for a change .

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by deggis

2nd most interesting Q&A after that ^:


It is pretty tight schedule though...

But its a very positive comment , meaning that Toyota heavy brass are obviously pleased in the direction the programme is going .

Great news .....

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by deggis

^

Purely visually: cool but still weird (then again the old full sized wings look so weird too now).

That new section , the horizontal definatly has aero effects , its really very interesting ..... lovely to see someone new break new ground for a change .

Not sure exactly what the fwd wheel arch mod does . Not sure what it did in the first place .

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by TF110

Not sure what the reason, but Vasselon said something along the lines of 'it won't happen again' in one of the interviews linked in this thread a couple pages back.

If you read the answer of Vasselon carefully, you get the impression that the engine issue will not be fixed this year. Perhaps because it only manifests itself after more than 6 hours and hence it is unlikely to occur in the shorter WEC races.

Have you learned from Le Mans?
“Of course, we cannot be happy, but of course we learned. It won’t happen again, it’s very clear what happened. We have changed it for 2013, but it shouldn’t be a problem for the WEC races.”

source: http://lendurance.co.uk/2012/08/on-a...scal-vasselon/

[gwyllion]

Lapierre admits that they might have switched to slicks too early.

We were worried about rain and track conditions so we put slick tyres on, maybe a bit early. It cost us time but by the end we couldn’t reach the Audis. After Le Mans people expected a lot more from our car but everyone needs to remember this is only our second race with this car and we are fighting with Audi, a team with enormous experience.

source: http://www.dailysportscar.com/viewAr...0EFD153C888548

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by Articus

It has everything to do with being a former F1 team. When is the last time we saw Oak

They tried somethin just before Le mans , along the trailing edge of the rear wing ..... dont know if it worked though .

[joeb]

Originally Posted by The Badger

That new section , the horizontal definatly has aero effects , its really very interesting ..... lovely to see someone new break new ground for a change .

From that angle the toyota 's front end really looks like a formula car with an enclosed wheel

[FstrthnU]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6DV...ature=g-user-u
Extremely good history of Toyota at Le Mans in the 2nd half of this video, including the work with DOME. I never heard of the connection with Toyota and Dan Gurney and All-American Racers in IMSA GT before! Also, the MC8-R is seriously cool

[rich07]

Originally Posted by FstrthnU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6DV...ature=g-user-u
Extremely good history of Toyota at Le Mans in the 2nd half of this video, including the work with DOME. I never heard of the connection with Toyota and Dan Gurney and All-American Racers in IMSA GT before! Also, the MC8-R is seriously cool

Thanks for posting that, I found it quite interesting as a timeline. Im starting to be a fan of Drive because they post up some sportscar stuff (Spa for example).

Slightly OT but I couldnt but laugh at what Leo said about so many classes in ALMS.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

If you read the answer of Vasselon carefully, you get the impression that the engine issue will not be fixed this year. Perhaps because it only manifests itself after more than 6 hours and hence it is unlikely to occur in the shorter WEC races.
source: http://lendurance.co.uk/2012/08/on-a...scal-vasselon/

Of course, I recognized it immediately when he said "we have changed that for 2013..." No reason to spend loads of time and money to fix something that will only arrive after a longer period of race time than 6 hours. Toyota was fastest in morning warmup, with a 1:47.398, half a second up on Audi.

[Salamus]

Originally Posted by FstrthnU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6DV...ature=g-user-u
Extremely good history of Toyota at Le Mans in the 2nd half of this video, including the work with DOME. I never heard of the connection with Toyota and Dan Gurney and All-American Racers in IMSA GT before! Also, the MC8-R is seriously cool

Really cool video! Thanks for sharing. The All-American Racers Eagle looks like a beast of a car!

[MulsanneMike]

Originally Posted by FstrthnU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6DV...ature=g-user-u
Extremely good history of Toyota at Le Mans in the 2nd half of this video, including the work with DOME. I never heard of the connection with Toyota and Dan Gurney and All-American Racers in IMSA GT before! Also, the MC8-R is seriously cool

It was one of the most successful IMSA GTP cars: http://www.mulsannescorner.com/ToyotaEagleMkIII.html

[Rennen]

Originally Posted by Articus

It has everything to do with being a former F1 team. When is the last time we saw Oak, Rebellion let alone Peugeot try something that skirted the regulations..

Aero concepts do not just pop up because they are cheap and easy to copy. You have to look at the car first and say where can we exploit the regs.

I agree with you!

[Acid09]

First complete race for the TS030 in the books.

The positives are that the speed is on Audi level and there have been zero reliability issues.

However, Toyota seems to have a serious fuel consumption disadvantage. We`re not talking about one lap per stint but more like 5-6.

This will make it impossible to win races this year, despite having to serve an additional penalty stop the #1 had almost an advantage of a minute in the end even though the #7 was as quick on track.

Given that this is substantial issue and the packed schedule won't allow any testing or development I guess it's safe to say that these issues can't be solved this season and as such Toyota will need for something to go seriously wrong in the Audi camp to win a race this year.

[CTD]

Originally Posted by Acid09

First complete race for the TS030 in the books.

The positives are that the speed is on Audi level and there have been zero reliability issues.

However, Toyota seems to have a serious fuel consumption disadvantage. We`re not talking about one lap per stint but more like 5-6.

This will make it impossible to win races this year, despite having to serve an additional penalty stop the #1 had almost an advantage of a minute in the end even though the #7 was as quick on track.

Given that this is substantial issue and the packed schedule won't allow any testing or development I guess it's safe to say that these issues can't be solved this season and as such Toyota will need for something to go seriously wrong in the Audi camp to win a race this year.

Hmm, i think we will see some kind of update to the Japanese round, as this round will have a high value for the Toyota board.
A victory there might secure the project a few extra millions for 2013 and 2014.

[chernaudi]

Problem is that if the fuel mileage gap is 5-6 laps at a track like Silverstone, that's huge. At LM, Toyota often was at a 1 lap disadvantage early when Audi ran 12 lap stints, but then again, I believe that Audi were running harder if anything at LM than at Silverstone (see the #1's innumerable 11 lap stints after both Toyotas fell out of contention).

My fear is that Audi may've been sandbagging on speed to get such a huge advantage with fuel mileage, or, simply, that Toyota decided to push for all they could get, and payed the price with poor fuel economy. Being one lap off at LM isn't encouraging, but 5-6 laps possibly at shorter tracks? That will be an extremely tough hurdal to overcome.

Toyota either have to pray that they get a DFI engine soon, or that Audi have more trouble than they got at Silverstone if they expect to win one before season's end, because they may have competitive pace, but that doesn't mean much if you're out-ranged by that much. Their inferior range and slower refueling stops I fear will cost them dearly everywhere, even if they are as fast or faster than Audi right now.

[Victor_RO]

You're forgetting that the Toyota also lost a bunch of time in both Safety Car situations. About 15 seconds of a lead wiped out in the first one, and then the 1 and the 7 were separated by the second SC and that gave the Audi a few more seconds. Also, without the two SCs, the #1 would have needed a splash at the end.

[Maelochs]

Right. Toyota traded lousy mileage for higher speed, and it almost paid off. Maybe that dual-fin rear end produced a whole lot of downforce which required a whole lot of power to overcome. Maybe their KERS unit wasn’t 100 percent—they had issues during practice.

Even with no yellows and perfect pit work Toyota would have finished second. Audi wouldn’t have saved an entire pit stop; both Audis would have needed a splash, but even that splash wouldn’t have added up to the lost time. Toyota wasn’t going to win this race unless Audi crashed.

Still this is Toyota’s Second race. Second race. Against Audi, which has won what, ten of twelve Le Mans 24s this century? Toyota’s fuel use wasn’t as high at Le Mans, so I have to imagine the high-downforce bodywork is eating up the power with drag. Toyota can tune out some downforce to increase mileage, find a little mechanical grip, and be as fast as Audi with good enough mileage to win—all without major engine re-engineering.

Remember, they were leading at Le Mans when Davidson crashed and Nakajima with the DWing, despite the fuel mileage difference. Likely the balance can be adjusted to get better overall performance—after all this race was a huge experiment, as is this whole season. Second to Audi in a team’s second race is no small achievement.

Even if Toyota can’t get a more fuel-efficient engine until 2013, the team can still push Audi to make mistakes (something they have done many times in the past,) capitalize on racing luck (like McNish’s flat) and might luck into a win.

If not, the team has already shown its potential—in only two races it has led both races and took second in its second race. The team probably would have been happy just to finish at Silverstone; finishing third would have been great.

Finishing second has already given them great leverage for more funding at the next board meeting—“See, just another couple engineers and a few more supercomputer hours and we could have won our second race!”

[gwyllion]

In http://lendurance.co.uk/2012/08/wec-...sh-and-rumsey/ Ralf Jüttner comments on the Toyota rear wing:

We will not be on the grid tomorrow with a second end plate, and I doubt that we will have that in Brazil or during this year. Yes it is a very clever interpretation, we all find solutions that people ask, ‘how the hell can this be?’. Think about the R15 – it was a very similar thing, it was just clever. Probably during the rest of the year, you will see the first copies but I guess the FIA and ACO will do something, I don’t think it will be the standard rear end of a sportscar for 2013 or ’14. They found a hole and made proper use of it, which is fine. That is what they were supposed to do, and we do the same.

[gwyllion]

Lapierre hints that there might be something wrong in the rules with regard to the fuel flow restrictor size:

We lost about six seconds to the Audi at each stop due to how long it takes us to refuel. So if we can sort out that fuelling problem, we’ll definitely have a chance to win before the end of this year.

source: http://lendurance.co.uk/2012/08/wec-...t-silverstone/

He is correct. The Toyota fueling stops take 60 sec, while Audi can do it in 54 sec for the e-tron quattro and 55-56 sec.

[FordCosworthPanoz]

What may suck for Toyota is that their major home race of Fuji is infamous for extreme wet weather thanks to it's unusually (for a racetrack) close proximity to a Mountain, in this case Mount Fuji. We saw how much of an advantage the E-Tron has in the wet and Toyota has no wet race miles so far for their program.

[Articus]

The one advantage for Toyota may be tat they have so much downforce. The car may be good in the wet. Lets just hope they keep the capacitor sealed tight...
They can probably simulate the effect of weather on the internals by using one of there Weather Sim rooms for the road cars where they check for leaks etc.

[chernaudi]

That depends on what areo package that Audi and Toyota use--Fuji is basically the Japanese Paul Ricard since Toyota (who own Fuji Speedway) paid Tilke to mess with it to get a F1 race for a couple of years.

The front straight is nearly a mile long and most of the corners are consistant with what one would find at Le Mans and Paul Ricard, and Paul Ricard does favor an LM-type set up, and I don't think that Fuji will be much different, and we know that Super GT teams do tend to run special areo there because of those considerations.

I think that a safe bet would be either a low downforce version of the sprint body kits, or a high downforce version of their LM packages, quite possibly the latter, because those noses on the sprint R18s and the sprint spec TS030 are very draggy with those short fenders and huge dive planes.